Following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement that the lockdown restrictions would be eased from 1 May 2020, leading South African media share news and updates on the impact of the coronavirus on the nation. Both online and traditional news media outlets…

As South Africa nears the end of the second week of its 21-day lockdown to curb the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, research by Ornico shows an increase in online news stories as a percentage of total media coverage. Traditional news media platforms such as television, radio and some print media however still reach the biggest audiences.

The research is based on a sample of 3 940 media items collected from online, print and broadcast sources for the period 1-7 April 2020, which is the second in a series of media coverage reports. In comparison to the launch infographic, which can be seen here, magazine coverage has increased from 0,4% to 5% of total coverage in the latest infographic. This change in magazine coverage can be attributed to their longer publishing cycle with their COVID-19 stories now being included in the latest analysis covering the beginning of April 2020

Brand Intelligence® firm Ornico has committed its resources to assist the communication industry and will be working closely with the Public Relations Institute of Southern Africa (PRISA) and other industry role players to help understand reportage around the pandemic. This will help professional communicators to improve critical messaging and to direct it to relevant audiences.

COVID-19 Media Coverage Infographic in South Africa – 1 to 7 April 2020

// ENDS //

ABOUT ORNICO:

Ornico provides reputation, media, advertising and brand research with a suite of products that includes Brand Intelligence® across the African continent. It does this to help marketers and brand owners make sense of the flood of information that occupies traditional and social media.